The Floating Baby

Is the floating baby countdown at the bottom of my blog giving anyone else the creeps? It should kick or move or something.

Our Past Projects

This post was Jen's idea. She wanted me to post a list of the projects that my kids have enjoyed. Did you notice I don't have a picture for this post? That's because I'm a slacker mom when it comes to taking pictures. That's one of the best things about creating this blog; I'm taking more! So my one big piece of advice for homeschoolers (and non-homeschoolers) out there: TAKE PICTURES OF YOUR KIDS WHEN THEY ARE HAVING FUN DOING A PROJECT! Most of the history projects come from The Story of the World Activity Book One: Ancent Times. The science projects come from various books about science experiments and from the Noeo Young Scientists Club and various science books from the library.

History Projects: (Throughout these history projects there are coloring pages and map work pages for every country and geographic area we studied. My kids love their map work!)

I took them to an abandoned field to do an "archaeology dig".
I sent them out in the back yard to make a hut or shelter using whatever they could find to simulate how the nomads lived.
We made a model of the Nile River complete with grass seed, dirt, and rocks. We "flooded" it every week or so over a period of a few weeks and watched the grass (crops) grow.
We made cuneiform tablets out of clay and they wrote their names in cuneiform.
Made a Heiroglyphic scroll.
Made pyramids out of sugar cubes.
Made stained glass windows to show how the Phoenicians made glass.
Made a Moses and the Ten Plagues sticker book.
Drew pictures of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Made an erupting volcano like the one that erupted on the island of Crete.
Made a greek charm bracelet out of Shrinky Dinks. Charms included the Parthenon, a greek olympic cup, grapes, and spartan warriors.
Made comic books about the Spartans.
Made a sculpture of the Parthenon out of blocks.
Made a roman Fasces.
Ran a roman restaurant.
Made a roman aqueduct.
Played the "Ransom Caesar Game". (Like Battleship)

Still to do:
Mint our own coins
Learn the Roman Numerals
Make a mosaic calendar.
Make pendants with secret pockets (the early Christians had to keep their identity a secret).
Make a Life of Jesus Puzzle.
Make a Shabbat sand art candle holder. (the end of the ancient Jewish Nation).
Make Nero's new crown.
Make a salt dough map of italy.
Make a secret symbol like the early Christian symbol of the fish.
Make Constantine's shield.
Have a Celtic Feast.
Reassemble a Roman pot.
Read the Cat in the Hat in Latin!!!????

Science projects:
We grew bacteria!
Made a weather station.
Grew plants.
Made models of the heart and lungs.
Tested our lung capacity using straws and 2-liter bottles.
Put Alka Seltzer and water in film canisters to demonstrate how rockets take off.
Made a model of the Solar system.
Made constellation viewers out of film canisters.
Demonstrated the magnetic pull of the moon on the ocean using magnets.
Compared the size of the sun and the earth using Cheerios.

I can't overstate how effective projects are at "cementing" information into kids' brains (at least my kids). It seems like once we've done a project or experiments for that subject, they just never forget it!

The Weekly Prediction

Our weekly menu:
Monday: Taco Salad
Tuesday: Spaghetti
Wednesday: White Chili
Thursday: Thanksgiving
Friday: Turkey Sandwiches
Saturday: Pizza or go out
Sunday: Turkey Sandwiches

My to do list:
Order James's Christmas gift
Order next week's library books
Make reminder cards for talks in primary
Order scriptures for Kell
Plan Keller's birthday party
Call mom about Christmas present ideas for the kids
Call Regan and plan Christmas Primary activity
Wrap Morgan's gift
Chop fruit and make dip for Co-op party
Make stuffing and cream cheese filling for pumpkin roll

Our library books this week:
Shakespeare: the animated tales (Julius Ceasar)
Julius Caesar: great dictator of Rome
Scat, Cat!
Mousekin's Thanksgiving
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Thanksgiving
Ancient Rome and Pompeii
Three Young Pilgrims
Miss Swiss
Hunk of Junk
Apollo 13: space emergency
The Celts
Roman numerals I to MM
Thanksgiving on Thursday
The Usborne first encyclopedia of space
Space Disasters
Cleopatra the queen of kings
Twister on Tuesday
Thanksgiving is...

Homeschooling; the Nuts and Bolts (Part 2)

I mentioned in the last post that we homeschool using the classical method. This post is a look at how we actually do it, for anyone who's curious.

From The Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer:
"What is classical education? It is language-intensive, not image-focused. It demands that students use and understand words, not video images. It is history-intensive, providing students with a comprehensive view of human endeavor from the beginning until now. It trains the mind to analyze and draw conclusions. It demands self-discipline. It produces literate, curious, intelligent students who have a wide range of interests and the ability to follow up on them."
There are four periods of history repeated three times that we will study. The ancients are studied in grades 1, 5, and 9. The Medieval-Early Renaissance is studied in grades 2, 6, and 10; Late Renaissance-early modern in grades 3, 7, and 11. And the Modern period is studied in grades 4, 8, and 12. By the time they reach twelfth grade, they will have studied each period three times delving a little deeper in the middle grades until in the upper grades, they are studying from unabridged primary documents and books. Clear as mud?
There are three stages of a student's classical education: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. Grammar is grades 1-4, and the students in this stage are eager to learn, curious, and love to memorize things! It is the time to gather knowledge. In the Logic stage, students start to question why things are done the way they are, and supposedly, kids in this stage love to "trick" adults, and be know-it-alls. They learn to recognize fallacies and false statements. Formal logic is introduced in this stage. Rhetoric is the stage where the student learns to express thoughts with "fluency, grace, elegance, and persuasiveness". Rhetoric stands on the shoulders of the first two stages. To make a clear argument about anything, a student needs to have knowledge and the ability to weigh the value of any statement.
So how we do school on a daily basis? This is our daily checklist:
Journal
Scripture Pictures
Math
Spelling
Memory Work (a video of Keller memorizing a scripture).
Latin
History (Mon, Wed, and Friday) Science Tues. and Thurs.
Reading
Grammar



At the beginning of every week, I put all of Keller's work into the folders labeled with the day of the week (in latin! That way he will have to learn the days of the week in latin!). On the right of the picture above, you can see our checklist. He just has to look at each subject, read what pages to do, and do it! This way, he knows when he's done, or how much further he has to go.

We start school at about 8:30 am and we rarely go past lunchtime, unless we have a project or something. After school, the kids are free to read, play with kids in the neighborhood, build forts, dig up worms...the sky's the limit. This is also when we do extra things like field trips, group activities (like homeschool co-op), ballet lessons and scouts. I told my sis-in-law Lindsay a few weeks ago that my kids aren't allowed to watch tv. The truth is, my kids don't ask to watch it! I put a cost of one ticket for one half hour of tv, and they always choose to do something else with their ticket. I occasionally put in a science or history video, if it ties in with the lesson. Sometimes you just have to get a visual of how big the solar system is to really understand it!

So that's pretty much how our days and weeks go by. With science and history, we do the reading on Monday through Wednesday, then on Thursday and Friday afternoons we do our projects and experiments. If anyone has any questions about what books or programs we use for specific subjects, post a comment! I love homeschooling. My kids tell me they do too!

Homeschooling; the Nuts and Bolts (Part 1)

This post comes from an email I sent to someone requesting more information about homeschooling. A lot of people have questions about the details of homeschooling. I'll try to answer some of those questions in this post, and in part 2.
Although I think homeschooling is wonderful and we have a great time doing it, it isn't for everybody. So don't feel bad if after you've researched the idea you feel it's not for you. There is so much to ask about homeschooling, isn't there? There are tons of different ways to do it. Here are a few that I know of:
1. First, is distance learning. I think this is what most people picture when they imagine homeschooling. You sign up for a complete curriculum and an accredited school (like Calvert) will send you the materials in the mail, and you do what it says. Like I said, it's a complete curriculum. You don't prepare any of the work and you don't choose what materials your children learn from. There is a program here in Utah called k12. Basically, it's public school done at home through the computer and various books. They even send you science materials! It's also free! I think there are only certain times of the year that you can sign up for this though.
2. The Classical approach. This is what we do. This method is best described as the education that our founding fathers had. It's the study of great books through the ages from ancient to modern using a system called the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric). It's academically rigorous. If this sounds interesting to you, a wonderful book to read is called The Well Trained Mind. It will guide you from 1st grade to 12th and tell you exactly how to do it.
3. Unschooling. Unschooling is the polar opposite of the Classical approach. Unschooling is child led education. As I understand it, the child sort of decides what they will learn about and how much they will learn. They are free to follow their interests, talents, and passions.
4. Charlotte Mason. The Charlotte Mason sounds similar to the classical approach with more of an emphasis on narrating what you've read and encouraging students to spend lots of time in nature.
5. Eclectic. Eclectic is a little of every approach. I guess this is us too.
I think all of the methods have truth and merit to them. There are more approaches that I've barely even heard of!
If homeschooling sounds like something you'd like to try you should read a book called Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Getting Started Homeschooling. She outlines the legal requirements for homeschooling, answers basic questions, and gives you a few things you need to know before you start. Then she goes into each approach in more detail than I did and directs you to different resources for each approach.
The most important things to know or think about before homeschooling in my opinion are:
1. Choose a method that speaks to you and seems to fit your family and parenting style. Don't try to do it the way someone else does. You've got to do what works for you .
2. If you're going to homeschool, you need to enjoy being with your child/children.
3. Homeschooling won't solve discipline problems. However, homeschooling provides you with time to get to know your child better, and you are more aware of what is causing the trouble.
4. It's a sacrifice of time on the part of mom (or whoever is responsible for the teaching). Your hobbies will have to wait (at least until the kids are in bed for the night).
In the next part of the post, I'll get into the classical approach in a little more detail and show you what our typical day looks like.
Good luck,
Kristy

Dinner's Back!

As I was putting away my groceries this afternoon, I read this on the grocery bags:
"How to prevent underage drinking:
Buy Groceries
Make Dinner
Eat Together
Studies show children and teens who eat dinner with their families at least five times per week are 35% less likely to use alcohol. To learn more, visit ParentsEmpowered.org"

When I don't cook dinner, I find that our evenings are so disjointed. The kids wander off somewhere, ( I usually feed them kid food on the nights I don't cook, like mac n cheese) bored and lost. James hops on the computer to check and recheck football scores. I guess he figures if there's not going to be any dinner, he's off the hook for hanging out with the family. And me? I'm slinking off into a corner somewhere reading a book, but not enjoying it because I know that sooner or later, one or all of us is going to get hungry and I'm going to have to do something about it. The kids end up staying up later which ends up making me irritable. I usually do cook. I hate it when I don't. So, in honor of dinner, I'm going to post our weekly dinner menu. What's everybody else having for dinner this week? If you've read this post, consider yourself "tagged"! You have to post your dinner plans this week on your blog for me to read! So without further ado, here is our menu for the week. (Drumroll).
Friday: Creamy Chicken Enchiladas
Saturday: Tomato Bisque (I'm bringing it to the ward dinner).
Sunday: Pork Roast, potatoes, and broccoli
Monday: I'm going to try to recreate the Cafe Rio Pork Salad, wish me luck!
Tuesday: Spaghetti, garlic bread, salad
Wednesday: Pork Burritos
Thursday: Barbeque Chicken, cole slaw, biscuits (and no, we're not going to KFC)!
Can you tell pork was on sale for .99 cents/lb?
Well, I'm off to make dinner!
Kristy

Let the kids make a mess!

Picture a kitchen sometime in the 50's. There is a mother in the kitchen putting cherry pie filling into a pressure cooker. She loads up the cooker and intentionally sets the pressure too high and doesn't latch the lid tightly. On purpose! She turns on the pressure cooker. The pressure builds up and soon the lid flies off and, like a miniature volcano, the cherry pie filling is launched all over the kitchen, covering the ceiling and cupboards with thick dripping oozing red gunk. Later she will clean it up. She'll scrub down the ceiling, the counters, the floor, and the cupboards. She willfully exploded the cherries so that her 8 year old son could indulge his passion for filming movies. He wanted something that looked like blood dripping from the cupboards.
At the age of 13, her son is still shooting movies, charging 25 cents for the kids in the neighborhood to come see his movies while his sister sells popcorn. At 16, the boy writes and directs his first independent film and it is shown at the local movie theater and makes a profit of $100. A writer for the local newspaper expected great things to come from the young filmmaker.
Later in life he creates films called:
Jaws
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
E.T.
The Indiana Jones Series
Poltergeist
Gremlins
Back To the Future
The Land Before Time
Jurassic Park
Schindler's List
Minority Report
Saving Private Ryan

Yes, the boy shooting horror films in the kitchen was Steven Spielberg. What a nice mom he must have had. I remember this story every time my kids ask me to do something messy. Who knows what great things they will do someday if they're able to follow their passions, however messy. I would have made him clean up the cherries, though!
Kristy

Women and their guilt!

Moroni 10:8 "And again, I exhort you, my sisters, that ye deny not the gifts of God, for they are many;and they come from the same God. And there are different ways that these gifts are administered; but it is the same God who worketh all in all; and they are given by the manifestations of the Spirit of God unto women, to profit them."



I think it's time to put to rest the myth of the woman who "has it all". No woman has it all or does it all. No woman. I think one of the dangers of reading fashion or celebrity magazines, watching tv shows, or even reading other people's blogs is this tendency women have of looking at an image or reading a short message and thinking, "Wow, that woman really has it all together!" A woman's next thought will surely be "I really need to get my act together." What we don't realize when we read magazines or blogs is that they are a snapshot. One moment. A few minutes in another woman's brain, or one look at the way another woman cleans, cooks, raises her children, or decorates her house. What we don't see is the real life that goes on behind and beyond that image. We don't see the dirty dishes in the sink, the baby crying in mom's arms and the toddler smelling like she needs a diaper change while the older two are bickering over a toy.
Now don't get me wrong. I love blogging and I love to read other blogs. I read home decorating and sometimes even fashion magazines. I like to see what other women are doing, and I like to steal their ideas for cleaning schedules, homeschool ideas, and meal plans, and outfits! But we women need to remember: It's only one small moment in her day, her life. She has faults! We all do. She has talents you wish you had. We all do. It's so easy to get on someone else's website and melt into a puddle of inadequacy. After all, there is Superwoman, dispensing wisdom and tips and so clearly more talented and hard working than you. But that's the problem. None of us live in cyberspace and not one of us is Superwoman. She never existed, and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can go about our lives, taking information and ideas when they are helpful, and having a healthy respect for the gifts of others.
If my children were perfect and I had no challenges at home or in my life, I would have nothing to blog about. I try to choose to write my blog when I'm upbeat and when I feel like I have something to offer others. I've always felt that there is enough written about how difficult motherhood and family life is. I like to look at the flip side and celebrate how wonderful it is too.
Homemaking is not about showing off or "having it all together". There are so many different gifts and talents from woman to woman. Let's thank God for the gifts He has given us (if you don't know what they are, pray for Heavenly Father to reveal them to you), cultivate the ones we find within us, respect and praise those who have other gifts, and not berate ourselves for not having the same ones. It will never benefit us to slink into despondency over a sister who has an eye for photography, just make sure you have her name and number when it's time for a family portrait! Some women cook gourmet meals, some take beautiful pictures of their families, some have such an artists eye for scrapbooking and crafts, others are wonderfully organized and their homes are a haven, still others design or sew beautiful clothes for their girls. You have talents! Don't ever doubt it.
If I've ever come across as perfection please forgive me and remember that electrons on a screen cannot compare with a personal heart-to-heart. If you start to feel like you're not measuring up to a cyberspace or glossy yard stick, feel free to come back, read this again, and refresh your memory. Now, if I can just practice what I'm preaching!
With love,
Kristy

This was the dessert we had at book club last week. It was soooo good. Give it a try!

Pumpkin Roll

3 eggs

1 cup sugar (could probably be cut down)

1 tsp. lemon juice

2/3 cup pumpkin

¾ cup flour

1 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. ginger

½ tsp. nutmeg

½ tsp. salt

Beat eggs, then add sugar, lemon juice and pumpkin; mix. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Line a jelly roll pan (large cookie sheet) with greased waxed paper, and grease the sides of the pan. Pour batter into pan and bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes. Sprinkle a towel with powdered sugar and lay hot cake on towel, remove wax paper and roll. Cool in rolled position.

Filling:

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

6 oz. cream cheese

2 Tbsp. margarine (soft)

½ tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar and cream cheese, then add margarine and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Unroll cooled cake and spread frosting. Roll up again. Wrap in foil and freeze. Remove from freezer 30 minutes prior to serving and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cut into 1 inch slices.

Maisie Dobbs, A Ladylike Detective!

A good mystery is so fun to read, but up until lately, most of the mystery books were kind of shallow, more focused on the story than the characters. The content in lots of the mystery series too has been nasty, graphic, or peppered with the sexual exploits of the female detective solving the case.
I'm happy to recommend a wonderful alternative. The Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear is a mystery series that is thoughtful, compassionate, and clean. Maisie Dobbs is a young woman living in post WWI London. She calls herself a "psychologist and investigator". She grew up as a working class servant and through her intelligence and work ethic, is rewarded with an unusual education that has provided her with the career that she enjoys so much. This mystery series features good writing, interesting characters, and great stories.
One of the first things I want to buy when I get this baby out of me is a little navy blue skirt suit, like the one Maisie wears. If you give this series a read I know you'll like it!
Happy reading,
Kristy

Fear vs. Faith

I've been living in fear a lot lately. Have you ever immersed yourself in a sorrow that doesn't exist? For example, James left for Denver early this morning. Instead of going back to sleep like a reasonable person, I laid awake thinking "What if his plane goes down?" Then I thought about the sorrow I would go through if he died. I would look at his whiskers in the sink and think "He's never coming back..." Same goes for the clothes in his closet, his grey sweatpants he always puts on at the end of the day. I don't know why I do this. I've done it with each of my children and other members of my family. Does anyone else do this? Why?
With this pregnancy, I can't stop dwelling on the fear that something will go wrong again. What if the baby dies? What if I die? I've even started writing instructions for James in case something happens to me.
Should I try to stop thinking this way? Or does this kind of imagined fear serve some kind of purpose?
Faith is the opposite of fear, so do you just have faith that nothing will happen and refuse to entertain the possibility that something might happen? Hmmm...what a weird post for me.
Kristy

Kids Bored With Schoolwork? Play A Game!

I have a secret weapon in my homeschool. When the kids get bored or the day is ho-hum, I pull out an educational game. It's like sneaking blended up vegetables into macaroni and cheese. Your kids don't even know it's there, and they gobble it up. When we play these math games at our house, my kids don't even realize that they're practicing math. To them, they're just playing games with mom and having fun.
Math is an especially easy subject to practice with games. I started this when Keller was just 4. We took a set of dice and we each rolled one. He would count up the dots on the dice and decide who "won" that toss (whoever got the biggest number). Another easy "game" is to grab some cans of food out of your cupboard and label them with prices. Then give your kids a pile of coins and a shopping basket and tell them they have to come up with the right amount of money for each item. I remember my kids always begging me to not stop whenever we did that one. It was so easy and fun, and they learned some simple adding and the value of each coin in a heartbeat.
In language arts you can make a stack of nouns on index cards, some proper and some common, and they have to choose which ones are proper. Whoever grabs the most cards with proper nouns wins. These are some cheap and homemade games.
When you step into the world of manufactured educational games and products, your head will swim with the possibilities.
I bought an expensive globe last year and worried that I would regret it. It's called the
Oregon Scientific SmartGlobe.It has a game programmed into it that lets you compete against one another for who can find the most continents, countries, capitals of countries, and states. I've never had to devote any time to geography as a separate subject because of this globe (combined with mapwork during history and a large world map that we have on the wall).
There are entire web sites and catalogs devoted to educational games. Here are a couple:
Excellence In Education
Mindware
Love To Learn


Whether you homeschool or not, play an educational game with your kids. They'll have fun, and you'll be happy knowing that they're learning! So go have fun with your kids!

Until later,
Kristy

Simple Pleasures

A tribute to the simple pleasures of life today. Like classic books and knitting to keep me busy when the kids are in bed. It's book club tonight and I'm looking forward to the discussion. Our book this quarter was so good, A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. Here's a wonderful quote about getting lost in a good book, taken from a book I just finished:
"The minutes and hours glided by as in a dream. When the cathedral bells tolled midnight, I barely heard them. Under the warm light cast by the reading lamp, I was plunged into a new world of images and sensations, peopled by characters who seemed as real to me as my room. Page after page I let the spell of the story and its world take me over, until the breath of dawn touched my window and my tired eyes slid over the last page. I lay in the bluish half-light with the book on my chest and listened to the murmur of the sleeping city. My eyes began to close, but I resisted. I did not want to lose the story's spell or bid farewell to its characters yet." -Carlos Ruiz Zafon The Shadow of the Wind.

Another simple pleasure is being able to hold your baby close and cuddle for a while. This pleasure doesn't come often enough for me, since Mary isn't a cuddler, but she's been sick and so I've been able to just hold her in my arms today. It won't be long until she's kicked out of her baby status by a new sister. How quick the time went. Enjoy your babies!
Until later,
Kristy

I'll Bet the Romans Didn't Have It This Hard!

As you can see in the photo above, we've been studying the Romans! This is Keller, Ella, and James dressed in their Roman togas when the kids opened their Roman restaurant. We had a blast! We served simple foods like plums, cheese, soup, and bread. James and I had to pay for our dinner with "Roman coins".
The following week, we took a stab at making our Roman aqueduct. The photo above is the very messy sand dough that we had to cook first.


Keller and Ella, putting scrollwork on their aqueducts.



After we shaped the aqueducts, they had to be baked. Here they are, coming out of the oven!


Disaster! One of the aqueduct bridges fell down and we tried several times to repair it, but it was no use.


After many attempts with the sand dough, we settled on building blocks! Here's a very happy Keller with his halfway done aqueduct.


Success! We put the "pipe" on the top, and the "holding tank" down below, and poured water through it, hoping for the best.

Here is a live shot of the aqueduct and the enthusiasm:
Our Aqeduct Video
We started this project at about 1pm. It wasn't working until about 4:30! This took way longer than I predicted. The beauty of homeschool though, is that if something isn't working, you can always try something else. I hope the kids learned a lot even though we failed at first. Keller said "I bet the Romans didn't have it this hard!"
Until later,
Kristy

This Classroom Will Now Come To Order!

In spite of my previous post about keeping school in session for the summer, we took a brief break! Vacations are an educational experience of their own kind and we've been on quite a few! The picture above is from our beloved river cabin in northern Idaho.
Now it's time to gain the momentum for school to officially start again. In this post, I offer a few resources and curriculum ideas that I'm particularly excited about:

First, I have a homeschool planner that I ordered from lovetolearn.net. It is an excellent resource! I have used Franklin Covey for years, but finally had to face the fact that it seems meant for people who work outside the home, not for full time homemakers and homeschoolers! I've tried other planners as well, but none really helped me feel as organized as this one. It has a place for weekly personal goals, phone calls, menu lists, church callings, and shopping and errand lists as well as your basic weekly schedule. In this planner (which comes punched for a standard sized three ring binder), I put my science experiment materials needed lists, library book lists, and lists of items needed for history projects. Now I don't need to wander into the school room and locate each separate subject binder to locate items needed for our activities! It's all in one place and if I'm out running errands, I can quickly scan the lists for what we need. Brilliant.

Second, I downloaded yearly goal master pages for each child from donnayoung.org. On each child's page, there is room for each subject, the goals stated for that year, the resources or curriculum to be used and its cost. This has really helped me focus on what I want them to learn for each subject this year, and it has kept me from forgetting some of the great books and games we have on hand.

Third, we're starting Latin this year! Were going to try Prima Latina. I'll let you know how it goes! Have a great time in your homeschool this year!
Until later,
Kristy

Be Legitimate!

My homeschooling affidavit came in the mail a couple of weeks ago. Time to renew our legal permission to homeschool! I'm publishing this post as a reminder to get or stay legal. In most states, this is a very easy task. Make up a letter of intent to homeschool, have it notarized, and send it in to your local school district. A couple of weeks later, the school district will send a certificate of exemption, and you're good to go! Note: This is how it works in my state, your state will differ. For details on how to be legally sanctioned in your state, visit the Home School Legal Defense Association.
Until later,
Kristy

Homeschooling; The Peaceful Path

Every time I tell someone that I homeschool, I almost always hear something like this: "Oh, I could never do that. It would be way too much stress." Or, "I don't know how you do it", "do you still plan on homeschooling now that you're pregnant?" And each time I hear one of these comments, I try to convince whoever I'm talking to that homeschooling is really not that stressful. When I tell people this I'm always met with bewildered expressions that seem to say; "How can that be?"

I think people view homeschooling as a slave-like devotion to the education of your children to the exclusion of all else. I think when other mothers try to envision themselves homeschooling, they imagine a "school day" that begins at 8am and doesn't end until 3 or 4pm, leaving little or no time for housework, baby care, social pursuits, meal preparation, or free time. Visions of a house hopelessly cluttered with science projects, papers, books, and pencils seem to enter their heads, scaring off many moms from the idea.

The reality, based on my own experience and that of other homeschool moms I've met in the community, is that homeschooling is remarkably peaceful.

There is no 7am rush to get everybody fed, dressed, combed, brushed, and out the door with permission slips signed, homework done, and show and tell items accounted for.

There is no worrying about the latest playground drama and how it will affect your child today.

There is no juggling of younger children when you go do your volunteer day in the classroom so that you can stay involved and connected to your child's education.

There are no fund raisers where you need to drive your child around the neighborhood to hawk cookie dough for money that will probably never directly benefit your child.

There is no homework after school is done! I can't imagine having to help with homework after I've put in a full day at home with younger children, housework, meals, etc. No wonder many parents end up yelling at their kids over homework! This is the most stressful part of the day for everybody. Kids are hungry, mom is trying to get dinner on the table, and dad has put in a long day at work. Not to mention the fact that the parents weren't the ones giving the initial instruction, so they have to spend twenty minutes reading the material so that they can explain the concept in a way the child will understand.

I start school at 9am and we're done at noon. I've found this to be enough time to get every subject covered and covered well. As my children grow older, I imagine they will be devoting more time to their academics. However, they will be older, and will require less one on one instruction, and I anticipate moving into more of a guiding, than a teaching role.

Life is stressful no matter what you choose to do. I happen to believe that homeschooling offers less stress about trivial matters. If I'm going to be stressed, I'd rather be stressed about something that matters!

Until later,
Kristy

Testing, testing...

In states where yearly testing isn't required, many home school parents come to the question; "Should we have our child tested?" This is a brief explanation of why we had our first grader tested this year.

First, my husband, though he is supportive of our homeschooling adventure wanted some sort of proof that Keller was really learning all he needed to know. I know he was kind of uneasy when he found out how little time was actually devoted to academics (3 hrs. max). He wondered how Keller could possibly be learning what he needed to in that amount of time when the public schools apparently needed so much more of our child's time to do the same. Also, we would skip a day here or there or sometimes even a week during the holidays, or when someone wasn't feeling well. He kept asking me, "Do you think he's learning everything?" I kept saying "yes", but he kept asking. Finally I asked him if it would make him feel more at ease if I gave Keller a standardized national test. This turned out to be an easy process. I ordered the test from Family Learning Organization, administered the test over about a week, and sent it in for scoring. The scores came back about a week later, and that was the end of "Do you think he's really learning everything? How do you think he compares with other kids his age?" In The Well Trained Mind it is quoted "Test results demand respect." I've found this to be true. I must say, it put my fears to rest, too. Even if the test results had been different, at least we could have seen where we needed to fill in the holes.

The second reason why it seemed like a good idea to have him tested was just to get him used to the experience of taking tests. Sooner or later he will have to take one, and if it's not a new experience, hopefully it will involve less anxiety for him. That's it.

I know there are other ways in which to gauge how much a child knows, but as a tool for capitulating any homeschool naysayers, testing still seems to be the gold standard.

Until later,
Kristy

Guidelines for Homeschool Success

Yes, I know that we've only been at it for a year, but here are some things that I've learned along the way. These are my top tips for a successful homeschool.

1. School happens every day. No ifs ands or buts. I have found time and again that if I slack of for even one day, then I will hear about it for at least a week in the form of whining and complaining. When the kids know that chores and school need to be done before anything else, the complaining magically goes away. Your consistency is absolutely necessary if you want cheerful obedience when it's time to crack the books.

2. Get up before your kids! If I make it a point to get up before my kids, I'm so much more ahead. I can get the dishes unloaded and a load of laundry put in and be showered before I need to respond to requests for matching pants, and new hair do's.

3. Be cheerful. If you approach school with a smile on your face and some excitement in your voice, it will be contagious. If you get to the school room use a bored voice and a "we have to get this done" attitude, once again, your kids will catch that attitude too. Come to school as if it's an adventure (which it is), and you'll have excited kids, ready to learn.

4. Choose good materials. It's possible to wrestle an education out of black and white science books from the 1960's that you found at a garage sale, but I prefer to use the exciting homeschool materials that are being produced today. The majority of these are excellent teaching tools with little or no preparation required from the mom. Using the most excellent teaching materials you can afford makes a huge difference in you child's learning. If a program or curriculum isn't working for you, SWITCH IT! That's the beauty of homeschooling, the freedom to choose what is best for your children and you!

5. Throw in some flair now and then. One week this year, the kids were lagging and seemed really bored. In a moment of desperation, I thought up "the school candle". I lit the school candle whenever we started school and blew it out when we were done. I don't know why, but the kids absolutely loved this. Sometimes, my son gets disenchanted with one of his subjects. I find that taking a few days and playing math games instead of doing his Singapore workbook will infuse some life into the subject. When he got bored with writing and spelling, I taught him a few cursive letters and he ate it up! Try to make things fresh every now and then. Sometimes all it takes is lighting a candle!

Happy homeschooling,
Kristy

Happy homeschooling,
Kristy

In Favor of Schooling Through the Summer!

It is so tempting to break for the summer like everyone else! Here, a few reasons why you might want to rethink taking an entire summer siesta.
First and most obvious; kids will forget much less if they continue to work through the summer. I have heard others say that the entire first third of the math books deal with math from the previous year so as to bring kids up to speed from the long summer mental sabbatical. It just doesn't make sense to not keep up! It seems to me that if you go on through the summer, your kids will be that much more ahead in their academics.
Second, you don't have to struggle through that difficult first month or so of school in the fall when it seems the kids brains are still asleep and their academic habits have been forgotten. I always notice that when we take a break for the holidays or some other reason, even if it's just for a week, it takes twice the effort to get everybody going again! If they're already used to schoolwork then you can continue seamlessly into the next school year.
Third, it's fun! By about the third day of summer, kids are bored anyway. Why not continue school with it's science experiments and history projects, math games and journal writing? I have found so far that if I keep it fun and loose and have a good attitude myself, my kids get a kick out of learning! Summer is a great time for all those big projects or educational field trips or day trips that you never seem to get to in the colder busier months of the year. Why not take the kids to an abandoned field and let them do an archaeology dig? Have them set up a small business selling things to learn about money and how to run a business-it could even be something as simple as a table and chairs and a pitcher of lemonade to sell.
Summer is a great time of year. Time for daydreaming, swimming, playing with friends, and time for learning! Make sure you allow enough time for the fun things of summer and add a couple of educational projects and your kids won't complain about summer school!
Until later,
Kristy